November 7, 2008
Las Vegas Quicksands
Las Vegas Sands Plunges on Default, Bankruptcy Risk
“The casino owner said it doesn’t expect to meet a maximum leverage ratio covenant in the fourth quarter. That would trigger defaults that might force it to suspend development projects and ‘raise a substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.’”
You can see that the market has been worried about LVS for awhile now; the one-year credit default swaps have moved from 50 to 1500 over the past year. This may be another excellent opportunity for the Chinese and Singaporean governments to step in and take stakes in the Sands’ Macau and Singapore operations on the cheap.
Cat: | Time: 10:00 am (utc+8)
November 7th, 2008 at 10:52 am
By my calculations, at $140 per share last year Sheldon Adelson fortune at the peak of the market with $244 million shares was worth $34 billion and ranked him #3 on Forbes 400 last year. If LVS goes down.. this has got to be the fastest destruction of a fortune in history… yes leverage is a bitch even for billionaires.
November 7th, 2008 at 11:25 am
@Lasw: Yes, the article said he was #3, which surprised me. I remember seeing a TV show about the building of the Venetian which featured him, and he struck me as an awful guy, but then again most obscenely rich people are.
November 7th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
In that case, the sole owner of Malaysian casino and part developer of the future Singaporean casino resort at Sentosa is going to be impacted if the overall project is impacted.
November 7th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
@kris: Not a big fan of the word “impact,” but I’m a snob. :)
November 8th, 2008 at 2:02 am
How about: “this effect will affect them?”
November 8th, 2008 at 7:56 am
@Anthony: I get confused with affect and effect too. Why not use “hurt” and “in trouble” here? :)
November 8th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
haha…I did not realized the typo earlier. I prefer a more impactful setence.
“They are going to be in deep s**t” :P
November 8th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
@kris: Deep doo doo has a lot of impact. :)
November 8th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Impacted may very well describe the effect on their affect. I have a suggestion from something I read on a notepad in a hospital; it may help free things up for them. “Dulcolax in the PM brings a BM in the AM.”